Communication (PG-13)

[Xiang]

You've been awfully kind by reviewing my fic these days, so I decided to read yours! I've only read the first chapter+the prologue, but I'll get to everything.

The minute I saw this I knew that I would love this one. I love the characters and the setting and basically everything! It might take me a while to catch up, though.

[Sike Saner]

Ratiasu: Ah! Hi! *does new reviewer dance, bringing woe and despair to the world* Glad you’re enjoying it so far. ^^


Well, well, well. So, here’s the new chapter… nearly a month after the last one. Oy. I apologize sincerely for the delay… honestly, I don’t know what has happened to my posting rate.

Anyway, I hope that this chapter proves worth the wait. This was another one that apparently had contrary notions about revision; however, I was insistent on whipping this chapter into shape, for it’s the point at which… well, you’ll see. Heh heh heh… *gets behind riot shield*

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Chapter 8 – Preclusion of Choice

The space surrounding Solonn was utterly silent and utterly dark but far from still, anything but empty. Rushing through this lightless, ethereal plane, a stream of pure power surged like a river. It carried the most wonderful feeling along its current, an almost inebriatingly sweet familiarity that embraced the very core of his being, comforting and revitalizing him as it flowed freely all around him.

This was the raw, elemental power of ice, and he reveled in its direct presence and contact. He could not see it, but he recognized it for what it was in the surest and most ingrained way. His mind floated in pure contentment, free from distracting thoughts as he hovered effortlessly there, motionless, feeling the very essence of his mother element rushing over him.

Subtly, imperceptibly at first, the elemental stream began to pick up speed as it flowed. The glalie in the midst of it noticed the acceleration with a delay, initially regarding it with only a mild curiosity, still very deeply engrossed in his unity with the power of ice. True concern for the change in the energy stream’s behavior set in and quickly grew as he found the current continuing to flow faster and faster—soon, it was rushing by so swiftly that he could barely register its caress over his bare hide as it flowed past.

That concern made a shift toward first fear and then panic as Solonn found the elemental stream now moving with such speed that he couldn’t feel it at all anymore. No longer was it merely flowing alongside him—it seemed to be rushing away from him now, leaving him behind.

No! No, come back! he tried to call out as the last of the flowing energy passed him by, giving him barely the time to note its departure as it hurried to some distant, invisible point far beyond him. But his cry was completely in vain; in this place, it seemed that he had no voice. All at once, he found himself suspended helplessly in empty space, the life-sustaining flow of elemental power having drained out and dried up completely from his surroundings.

The utmost vulnerability in which he was left compelled him to howl in terror despite his voicelessness, his futile screams heard by no one, not even himself. His mind was so besieged by panic that he couldn’t even begin to imagine how this could be happening, how his mother element could abandon him like this. The only notion that seemed able to remain intact within his mind—and with a brutal vividness—was the knowledge that separation from his element meant certain death. A glalie who fell from the arms of ice simply could no longer be. His element had left him behind in nothingness—without it, he knew, he would soon become a part of that nothingness.

His mind was beginning to splinter in earnest as he made his final, seemingly hopeless appeals for salvation, pleading voicelessly to the multitude of gods, calling out to the very heart of the universe, begging for his survival and safe return to the embrace of his element unto anyone, anything, that could possibly hear his desperate prayer. Soon, however, it became all to clear to him that his severance from his element, his life, would not be mended. Oblivion would consume him—it had already begun to do so.

He almost didn’t feel it when something disturbed the emptiness around him, something foreign, indiscernible. Just as soon as he had noticed it, before he could even begin to perceive its true nature clearly, a strange, pacifying wave emanated from whatever it was and engulfed his mind completely.

All will be fine, it seemed to tell him. Do not be concerned.

The suggestion came as gently as could be, but also as irresistibly as was possible. Perhaps it was death; perhaps it was salvation; perhaps it was something entirely beyond reckoning. Whatever it was, its consoling command was obeyed without resistance. The glalie slipped away from all further thought and sensation without a care.

* * *

The most vague notions of awakening crept into Solonn’s mind, just out of grasp of his full consciousness. Unhurriedly, he began to reconnect to his senses, and before fully awakening, with his eyes still closed and his consciousness liable to slip right back into sleep at any moment, he decided and attempted to rise up.

He failed.

Still only minimally awake and emerging very slowly from what had been the deepest sleep that he had ever known, Solonn felt something only marginally resembling concern. He thought he had just commanded himself to rise up from the floor and into the air; perhaps, he considered in a detached way, he had not sent the order to his body after all. So, he tried once more to lift off…

…And failed again.

As his mind unmuddled and awakened even further, Solonn felt a burgeoning panic, one that spiked when the notion finally hit him: I can’t get up!

With a delay, his eyes opened to a view of the ceiling, where a plant hung in a basket directly above him, a number of leafy tendrils spilling over the basket’s rim to dangle toward the floor. The picture his eyes presented seemed strangely dull to him, lacking in definition and color. He began blinking rapidly, trying to clear out whatever was hazing his vision. At the same time, he set about continuing to try and ascend, but his body still didn’t respond; it was as if it didn’t even understand the instructions that he was giving it.

His ears filled with the sound of pounding blood as his heart began racing. Why can’t I get up?! He tried, to very little avail, to calm himself enough to make sense of things. It seemed that while his mind had almost fully awakened, his body was having an unusually difficult time following suit. The thought occurred to him that maybe it would have an easier time responding to an order to execute a simpler, less demanding action. He decided to give up on trying to ascend into the air for the time being and instead just concentrate on getting off of his back and sitting upright and face-forward.

This demand, it seemed, was not too extravagant for his body to carry out in its strangely compromised state. However, as it did so, Solonn found himself stricken by a very unusual sensation; as his face pitched forward, he felt something seeming to cinch together in the vicinity of his abdomen—almost a bending sensation, as if at a waist, which was something that he did not have.

And yet, he did.

He cried out in disbelief at the sight that met his eyes once he had succeeded in sitting up, a brutally unreal picture that told him in the most blunt manner possible how it was that his body had bent in a fashion that should not be possible. There before him, he saw a pair of long, pale-skinned legs ending in five-toed feet. And unless his mind was playing a very cruel trick on him—it had to be, he told himself silently in a repeating loop—those limbs were his.

No… no, this can’t be real… I’m still dreaming; I’ve got to be… Solonn was almost able to believe that conclusion—almost. Swallowing against a hard knot of dread that had built up in his throat, he stared intently at one of the feet and, hoping and expecting in equal measures that the effort would fail, he willed it to move.

It moved right on command.

He screamed, flailing madly as he half-jumped, half-scuttled backwards in horrified surprise. In his futile attempt to escape from his own feet, the back of his head connected very sharply with a corner of the small table near which he had fallen asleep. He exclaimed wordlessly at the pain as it exploded across the inner surface of his skull. There was no doubt about it: the pain was real. Though Solonn wished dearly that it weren’t so, it seemed that reality was determined to literally beat the truth into his head. This was not a dream. This was really happening. Somehow, impossibly, he had become human.

He swooned in a sudden wave of weakness and slumped backwards against the side of the nearby armchair, panting. A growing ache awakened in his chest as his heart continued hammering in sheer, animalistic terror. Disarrayed thoughts and frenzied, tangled emotions raced through his mind. He felt as though he might pass out from the bewildering shock at any moment and would have been all too grateful to do so, but in an almost sadomasochistic way, his brain stayed conscious and forced him to suffer along with it as it continued to torture itself with this bizarre new reality.

Though he desired very strongly not to do anything of the sort, a cruel compulsion forced him to look upon himself, to force-feed the surreal image of what he had become into his brain. Unwilling eyes swept over the form of the tall, lanky body that was now his own.

This was the first time that he had ever seen a human body unclothed. In the same stark, tactless fashion that everything else about the situation had shown itself to him thus far, Solonn was made to recognize that he was, at least, still male, and the way by which he determined this left him mortified both for his own sake and that of an entire species. Good gods, they keep that out?

This body was more than just very strange to him—it was wrong. He should not have this; he should not be this. He should be a glalie, a creature of the element of ice… but that element was no longer there for him. He tried to reach it again, some part of him desperately hoping that in doing so he could somehow return to his true form, but he felt nothing at all of his mother element’s embrace.

He moaned, not at the throbbing, shooting pain that still lingered in his head but rather at the severance from his beloved element. He felt his anguish seem to swell in his chest and then well up behind his eyes until they could hold it in no longer, and thus he cried for the very first time in his life.

Several minutes after the fact, he finally noticed that there was something damp at the site of the impact on the back of his head, and he gave a small, mournful sound at the new, unpleasant sensation; it was just one more thing to further deny him the option of pretending this whole situation away and dismissing it as some dream or hallucination or other lie of the mind. Shaking, he glanced down at his hands as they lay limply at his sides; then, only half-aware of what he was doing, he lifted one of them to the back of his head. He recoiled at the warm stickiness he found there amidst the hair. He then brought that hand before his face, and he felt his throat go dry at what he saw. Though his vision was presently blurred slightly, he could still make out the blood that was smeared across the tips of his fingers—blood that was red and not at all evanescent. Human blood for a human body—which he should not have.

Solonn closed his eyes and tried to retreat into the corners of his consciousness, thoroughly overwhelmed. He could not even remotely fathom how such a thing could have possibly happened to him, nor could he even begin to think of what he should do under these circumstances.

Sighing, he allowed his eyes to open once more, conceding to the fact that he would not be given the mercy of release from his awareness of this situation. He turned his head and let it sink listlessly to his left shoulder, faintly regarding a number of long, black strands of hair that fell across his face. Through them, he saw the little table at his side, on which there sat a small, flat, black box.

A course of action occurred to him as he recalled the little device’s function: he didn’t know what to do about the situation that had befallen him, but perhaps Jal’tai would. Solonn could think of no one else available from whom to seek any possible solutions. He reached up toward the device and pulled it down toward himself. He turned it over in his hands for a moment as he tried to retrieve the memory of how to operate it. Voice-activated, he then remembered. You tell it what to do. With another few seconds’ perusing of his mind, he recalled the instructions that he was to give it.

He looked upon the large speaker that dominated one surface of the strange paging device; seeing no other prominent feature on it, he figured that this was the part of it to which he was to direct his command. He took a deep breath, trying to get a hold of himself long enough to do what he intended to do here in spite of the toll that this turn of events had taken on his mental state, then spoke his intentions to the little black machine.

“Page,” he said almost breathlessly, and he felt his throat constrict as soon as the word had escaped it. Aside from the slight alteration caused by the fact that his nose was a bit congested at the time, his new voice sounded exactly like the one he had possessed as a glalie. It was an oddity that confounded and anguished him. He still sounded like himself—why, he wondered, couldn’t he still be himself in every other way?

There was a small beep, and a tiny, green light turned on beside the speaker. “Please state the name and room number of the one you are paging,” the device said in the same computerized voice that the transport device outside the suite had used.

“Jal’tai,” Solonn answered hoarsely, “room 44-B.” He dearly hoped that he had remembered that number correctly.

“One moment please…” the device said.

Solonn held his breath as he waited for a response. Thankfully, it seemed that his mind had successfully retained the correct number for Jal’tai’s room, for after several seconds: “Yes? Is there something you need?” Jal’tai’s familiar, kindly voice came through the speaker.

“Oh yes,” Solonn responded shakily, his voice charged with urgency, “yes, there is.”

“Oh dear…” Jal’tai clearly had no trouble detecting the distress in Solonn’s voice. There was a brief pause, then, “What’s the matter?”

Solonn strongly doubted that Jal’tai would believe the answer to that question. “Can’t explain,” he replied hurriedly. “Just need you here now. Please hurry.”

Another pause. “Yes… yes, of course. I’ll be right up,” Jal’tai said finally.

“Connection terminated,” said the computerized voice of the device then. The beep sounded again, and the green light turned off.

Solonn set the paging device down on the floor beside him and released a long, weary sigh. All he could do now was wait for Jal’tai to show up—even if he only had seconds to wait, he was not sure that he could endure it. He was fully aware of how nearly every muscle in his body trembled in anxiety, his hands shaking like leaves, with tiny yet powerful twitches tugging and pricking at the skin around his eyes and mouth. Vaguely, he wondered if he might not lose this body just as soon as he’d come by it, for it seemed to be threatening to shake itself to pieces.

As the seconds crept slowly by, he stared forward blankly, barely blinking, at one of the suite’s draconic statues that sat a couple of yards away. It lay on its marble pedestal with its tapered wings outstretched and its taloned forearms crossed in front of it and gazed sightlessly back at Solonn with a look of absolute serenity. Solonn could only futilely wish that he were in a position to return a matching expression to the smiling stone figure.

A voice sounded then, startling Solonn in his compromised state, pulling his attention at once from the statue of the dragon pokémon. “Solonn? Are you all right in there?” It was Jal’tai. “May I come in now?” the swellow asked him through the wall.

“Please do,” Solonn called back shakily.

“Of course, of course… just give me a moment here…” Jal’tai responded.

A tone sounded within the suite shortly thereafter. “Prepare to receive a visitor,” the computerized voice said calmly. Solonn turned toward the wall separating the suite from the hall outside. A second later, a shimmering, pale green field of light appeared within the suite, forming above a tile that matched the one outside, then solidified into the form of Jal’tai, who stood there in front of the wall with a concerned look leveled at Solonn. If he was at all shocked or surprised to behold a human where there should have been a glalie, he did not show it.

Without a word, Jal’tai walked over to where Solonn half-sat, half-lay. He stopped before the former glalie, ruffled his wings and folded them tightly against his back, and gave him a long, unflinching look, his face taking on an expression that was difficult for Solonn to quite interpret.

Already disturbed to no small degree by what had befallen him, Solonn found himself unnerved further by the way the swellow’s steely raptor’s eyes took in his new form—his naked new form…

Solonn inhaled sharply in sudden mortification. This was one detail which he had overlooked—now Jal’tai was getting an unobstructed view of something that Solonn wouldn’t show to anyone under normal circumstances, not even to those of his own kind. Feeling the blood rush to his face in a hot wave of embarrassment, Solonn repositioned himself hastily to cover his shame.

“Relax, relax,” Jal’tai said coolly. “It’s nothing I haven’t seen before. After all—” He paused briefly to take a breath, his gaze shifting to Solonn’s eyes and sharpening further. “—it was I who designed that very body for you.”

That took a very long moment to fully register in Solonn’s brain. For a moment, he forgot to breathe. He gave the swellow a stupefied stare.

Jal’tai nodded. “It’s true, Solonn.”

The human’s stare went flat. For countless seconds on end, he made no response whatsoever, frozen in the moment. Then he inhaled very slowly, very deeply.

“Why?” he asked, his voice constrained so badly that it was distorted almost beyond recognition. “Why… and how… in the fires of a thousand hells… did you turn me into a human?”

Jal’tai closed his eyes and lowered his head. “Yes,” he said soberly, “you are owed an explanation for all this. It’s imperative that you be made to fully understand the situation. I will address your question of ‘how’ first, since that comes with the shorter answer. To begin to answer that question, however, I must start by being more honest with you with regards to the matter of who—and what—I truly am.”

The swellow suddenly took to the air without warning, hovering in place to Solonn’s right and slightly above him. “Don’t be frightened by what I’m about to show you,” Jal’tai said, his words accompanied by the sound of his steadily beating wings, “for it is my true form. I am and shall still be the same person in spirit that I have shown myself to be while in your presence up to this point.”

Solonn could only stare mutely at him, watching as the air around Jal’tai began to ripple and shimmer, blurring the swellow’s form. Soon, Jal’tai completely lost definition, becoming nothing more than a wavering mass of faint light. The light then intensified and began to take shape once more. When it faded away a second later, the swellow was gone. In his place was something very different, something blue and pale gray that, though still feathered, was no longer a bird.

Jal’tai was now a dragon.

(CONTINUED)

[Sike Saner]

“There,” Jal’tai said. He sounded no different than he had prior to revealing his true form, and he used a tone that was likely meant to be soothing, though it failed in that endeavor.

Solonn stared agape at him for seconds on end. Wide with astonishment, his eyes then began casting flitting glances back and forth between the hovering form of Jal’tai and the draconic statue nearby.

Jal’tai followed one of the human’s darting glances and then let out a chuckle. “No, no, dear boy,” he said. “That’s the female of my species you see depicted there. That is a latias. We menfolk are latios.”

The latios might as well have said anything there for all Solonn cared; there were very specific things he wanted to hear about from Jal’tai, and the difference between the males and the females of Jal’tai’s species was not one of them.

“What does that have to do with… with this?” Solonn demanded in a pained-sounding hiss, sweeping his gaze quickly over himself before returning his wild, bewildered stare to the dragon.

“Well, my dear boy, the matter of my species is actually quite relevant to what has been done to you, for it was by the transfigure technique, an ancient art which survives in practice today by none outside the lati race, that you were given this new form. A swellow could not have used the transfigure technique; on the chance that you might have known that, I deemed it necessary to reveal my true form lest you fall short of believing me when I told you how it was possible for me to transform you.”

Solonn hadn’t known what swellow were and were not capable of or why it should be any easier to believe that a dragon could possess the power to transform him than to believe that a bird could, nor did he care to know these things. Jal’tai’s explanation as to how the change was made held little meaning for Solonn and fell quite short of a satisfying answer.

Hoping that the other question would yield an answer that he could use, “Why, Jal’tai?” Solonn pressed in a brittle voice, the words more exhaled than spoken.

Lowering his head, Jal’tai drew back slightly from Solonn. “Forgive me, Mr. Zgil-Al,” he said soberly. “I sincerely regret not being more straightforward with you from the start. But there was only one way this could be done feasibly, and unfortunately, it did require me to keep you largely in the dark up to this point.”

The latios clasped his talons and met Solonn’s gaze steadily despite the way the human’s brown, bloodshot eyes pierced into his own. “The first thing you need to know in order to understand the situation is this: I am not merely a proud citizen of this great city. I am also the mayor and director of the Convergence Project, its guide and guardian.”

“Well, good for you,” Solonn croaked acidly. “And what is it about that, exactly, that required you to turn me into this?”

“Patience, my boy,” Jal’tai said evenly, unfazed by Solonn’s venom-laced response, earning a severely indignant look from the former glalie. “You must allow me to explain; it is crucial that you understand the circumstances that have come to include you and understand them completely, and not just for your own sake, either.”

The latios paused for a breath, then released it on a sigh before proceeding. “I love my city, Solonn,” he said wistfully. “I love it more than anything else in this world. The fact remains, however, that I will not be around to guide it forever. Therefore, it will become necessary for someone to one day take my place.

“This is where you come in, Solonn. Now, it may not be obvious to the eye of the beholder, but I am getting on in years… Soon, I will be retiring from my position as mayor of Convergence, and the city will need someone to take my office when I depart. That someone is required to have a very particular and very rare skill in common with me—it is rendered a vital necessity by the very nature of this place. My successor must be able, just as I am, to freely and fluently communicate with pokémon and humans alike. My successor must possess the Speech.”

To that, Solonn reacted immediately and strongly. In a flurry of very awkward motion, he scrambled away from the chair against which he had been reclining and began crawling backwards away from Jal’tai, compelled to put a healthy distance between himself and the latios as swiftly as he could manage. How did he find out?! he wondered fearfully. His mind was now racing much too fast to light on many explanations, but the only one that managed to come through seemed to be the only one that could be plausible to him anyway.

Just as soon as it had appeared in Solonn’s mind, it was confirmed. “Yes, Solonn. I am a psychic,” Jal’tai said, nodding. “But, no, that’s not how I learned of your gift. Not initially, anyway,” he clarified.

Lowering his talons and turning them palms-outward in a curiously human-like gesture, trying to appear as non-threatening as he could, Jal’tai began to glide slowly toward Solonn, his wings remaining rigid and stationary, suggesting that some less mundane force powered his flight. Solonn continued backing away from the advancing latios, but he soon found himself backed into a corner, trapped by a wall to his left, a large, oak dresser to his right, and Jal’tai before him, who had apparently accelerated his approach somewhat as he was now only a foot or so in front of Solonn.

Jal’tai settled himself onto the carpet before Solonn, folding his forearms in front of his chest, and continued. “I saw you, you see,” the latios explained. “The day before last, I saw what happened to you in Lilycove,” he elaborated, with a note of earnest sorrow coloring his voice on that statement. “I was out for a nice flight; as I mentioned before, I do make occasional excursions outside Convergence, just for a change of pace. I decided to alter my usual course a bit that day and chose to go eastward instead of the southward direction I usually take. My course found me flying over Lilycove, and there I caught sight of a most deplorable scene…”

A definite tinge of disgust entered Jal’tai’s words here, a disgust so strong that it held him from continuing for a few seconds. “I saw a sign out in front of an old, rather miserable looking theater, promising a real, live… ‘talking’ pokémon inside…” The word “talking” was ejected from the latios’s beaklike mouth with as much force and clear distaste as if it were something on which he had been gagging.

“I saw a small group of humans rush you into the theater through the back way,” he went on. “I slipped in after them, cloaked by my psychic abilities. I found you sleeping backstage, and I tapped your mind while you slept, just deep enough to learn if what the sign outside that wretched scene claimed was accurate, and thereby I learned that indeed it was.

“Even if it hadn’t been, though, I would have broken you out of there. The way you were being treated there, as a spectacle… it was sickening…” he hissed, his red eyes narrowed in vehemence. “I was about to make a move toward your liberation, too, but just then, a new human presence came onto the scene, one in whom I immediately sensed benevolent intentions regarding you. A quick tap of her mind told me that she was your friend and had come to rescue you from your would-be exploiters.

“You had awakened at this point, but your attempts to escape were foiled by a restraining technique, one cast by a creature whose presence I had not even detected. I went and searched about the vicinity for the caster and thereby found a sableye—a dark-type, able to evade detection by my psychic senses. I dispatched him at once by means of a dragon claw.”

Solonn’s eyes narrowed in sudden suspicion. “Morgan told me that she had taken him out,” he said.

Jal’tai sighed. “I am afraid that both you and Morgan were misled where that is concerned,” he told Solonn. “You see, your human companion happened to walk in onto the scene where the sableye had been hiding just as I was dealing with him—the summoning of the technique I used to take him down required me to shift my focus from my psychic element to my dragon element, thus forcing me to give up my invisibility, and so it was that Morgan saw me there. I should explain that my kind are… valued by humans—” There was another charge of the dragon’s particular brand of revolted emphasis on the word “valued”. “—due to our potent psychic and draconic abilities. Though I sensed virtue in this particular human, I was in no position to say the same about the other humans in her life, and I confess that I was unwilling to take a chance on whether or not her integrity was so strong that she would keep my appearance a secret.

“Hence, I found it necessary to modify her memory of that event. I quickly rendered myself invisible once more. Then I placed a hammer that I found lying nearby into her hand and implanted a memory of her using it to knock out the sableye, and I made her forget having seen me.” He briefly closed his eyes and lowered his head as if in shame. “I regret that action now. I should have given her the benefit of the doubt. I should have recognized just how honorable her nature truly was. I did come to recognize it, after watching her help to liberate you, and following her as she guided you to safety outside the city…”

The latios’s face took on a faint, wistful smile. “She, a human, actually chose to let you part from her company rather than allow you to remain and risk exploitation again… very noble… very rare. Anyhow… following the events of that evening, I knew you could go nowhere but west, and so I waited in the grass for you and then brought you here.”

“You could have told me all of this at the start,” Solonn admonished him. “And none of that explains why you needed to change me like this.”

“Actually,” Jal’tai said, “within what I have just told you lies the precise reason why your transformation was necessary. You were taken to be made into a spectacle by those humans in Lilycove because you were a glalie who could speak their language. For that quality, you were regarded as a freak—a valuable freak, yes, but a freak nonetheless—and you were treated as one.

“Now, you are a human who can speak pokémon languages—you have been speaking glalie language this entire time, as a matter of fact,” Jal’tai added. “My point is that humans sought to exploit and degrade you as a freak when you were a pokémon. They will not, however, do that to you as a fellow human. The unfortunate truth is that generally speaking, humans only hold true respect for their own kind. That is why I transformed you.”

“Without my consent!” Solonn shouted, throwing a feral look at Jal’tai.

“Yes, and I apologize!” Jal’tai responded swiftly, actually sounding quite hurt. “But that was only to spare you the experience of what would have been a very painful and disturbing process. The nature of my method is such that if the subject knows the change is coming, their brains cannot be made to ignore that it is occurring. With that in mind, I had a sleep-inducing drug added to your meal at Whitley’s. Once I was certain you had fallen asleep in here, I entered the suite. Then, using certain of my psychic abilities, I put a sort of… for lack of a better term, a lock upon your brain to separate it from your tactile senses so that you would not awaken while I changed you.”

“You did it that way,” Solonn said accusingly, “because you knew I would say ‘no’.”

Jal’tai winced. He then turned the most wounded expression that Solonn had ever seen upon the human. It did nothing whatsoever to bring down the fear and outrage that was growing clearer by the second in Solonn’s eyes. “Please, my dear boy… please… you must believe me when I say that I never wanted to cause you suffering. My course of action was for the sake of mercy, and, yes, it precluded your choice. For that, I am sorry, Solonn, sorrier than I could ever adequately express. But it had to be done. I need you, Solonn.”

For a moment, Solonn had nothing to say to the latios, remaining silent save for the rasping of his long, hard breaths, his shoulders trembling from the violence of his respiration. He merely maintained an unforgiving gaze straight into the eyes of the creature who had subjected him to this change and torn him from his mother element, feeling fresh tears making his way down his face as he thought once more of what he had lost. At length, he closed his eyes and allowed his head to sink to his chest, his hair almost completely veiling his face, and he remained this way for a very long moment.

Finally, he lifted his head and opened his eyes, and he turned an incredibly cold, penetrating stare upon Jal’tai, his brows drawn tightly together, the already severe lines of his angular face sharpening further. “You’re no different,” Solonn said, his voice uninflected save for the places during that statement where it threatened to break. “You want to use my abilities to serve your purposes. You seek to exploit me, Jal’tai, just like the humans did in Lilycove. You are no different from them.”

The latios pulled his head back as if the human before him had just taken a swing at him. His eyes widened dramatically, then narrowed sharply. “How dare you!” he hissed in outrage. “There is a tremendous difference between myself and those—” In lieu of a word, Jal’tai chose to describe the abductors of Lilycove with a short blast of acrid-smelling, sickly-yellow dragonbreath over his shoulder. “I,” he went on, his voice dripping with indignation, “respect you.”

“You respect me?!” Solonn said sharply, incredulously. “Is that why you’ve lied to me and subjected me to a physical transformation without my consent? Is that why you insult my intelligence by expecting me to just sit here and swallow everything you say after that?”

“Solonn, please…”

Solonn shook his head. “No, Jal’tai. There is no reason why I should listen to you, not when you’ve been dishonest from the moment we met.” The birth of a sudden suspicion flashed across his features. “Answer this, Jal’tai: if running the city required me to be made human, why didn’t the same job require that of you?”

“Because you can’t do this,” the latios said simply, and with another rippling shimmer, the dragon was gone. Sitting there instead was an elderly, goateed human man, one whom Solonn recognized immediately as the man pictured on the sign at Whitley’s.

“This is what the citizens of Convergence, as well as those with whom I do business outside of town, see when they look at me,” Jal’tai said. “And this—” He suddenly sounded the part of the old man, too, with the human language to match. “—is what they hear. To them, I am a human by the name of Rolf Whitley. Under this guise, I became a very important, albeit not widely recognized figure in human society. In addition to being the mastermind behind the Convergence Project, Rolf is also a very important senior member of the International Pokémon League. I could not have attained that kind of power and the resources that come along with it in my true identity as a pokémon.”

Jal’tai reassumed his latios form. “Now, under less demanding circumstances, I could simply apply a mirage to you, too. In fact, when we entered Convergence and when I brought you into this hotel, I presented you just as you now appear. However, the method does have its limits, limits that make it impractical as a full-time, twenty-four-seven solution. For one thing, I cannot maintain a mirage over you from a distance, and not much of a distance, either. You would have to remain within the sphere of my psychic perception, which in my old age is, I’m afraid, quite small. I think we can both agree that it would be quite impractical for me to follow you like a shadow everywhere you go, right?”

Solonn gave him a look that suggested that he was not even inclined to agree with Jal’tai on the sun being bright and the night being dark.

“Furthermore,” Jal’tai said, “it is not enough to merely look like a human. You must support the image you present accurately in the physical sense, as well. You must feel like a human. What if another human wanted to shake your hand? You would have to be able to offer one that he or she could clasp, one that he or she could feel. Now, while I am able to produce ‘solid’ mirages, as I use for my own needs in portraying a human, I’m afraid it is outside the scope of my abilities to project a ‘solid’ mirage over you and keep some kind of mirage or cloak over myself at all times. And it would be necessary for me to conceal my true identity somehow if I were to remain near enough to you at all times to maintain your disguise; again, being what I am, I must not let just anyone see me about. Furthermore… I will remind you of the fact that I will not be around to conceal your identity forever. Therefore, the only feasible way for you to meet those particular demands of this position was for me to subject you to the transfigure technique.”

Jal’tai sighed very heavily, lowering his head slightly and passing a talon backwards over it as if raking it through hair in another curiously human gesture. “Solonn… do you not recognize how very important it is to the future of the world that the Convergence Project is kept alive and running? This community must be maintained, for it is a shining example of the fact that pokémon and humans can and should live and work as equals, that anything they can do, we can do, too. It’s an example sorely needed by the world. The state of relationships between humans and pokémon desperately needs to be changed. Solonn… did you know that most humans do not realize—or else deny—that pokémon are intelligent beings?”

Solonn only stared back with wild eyes. His throat worked, but he did not answer.

“I didn’t think you were aware of that,” Jal’tai said softly, reading Solonn’s blank silence correctly. “It’s true, though. The majority of humans regard pokémon not as people, but as mere animals.” Potent vehemence rose up through his voice at those words, and it danced within his eyes, almost seeming to set them alight. “That is why they will only respect one of their own kind,” the latios said. “Hence the unfortunate need for our façades.”

Solonn was silent for a moment after Jal’tai finished speaking. He appeared to be deep in thought. Then, with a look in his eyes that spoke both of dawning epiphany and the prelude to a volley of fresh accusatory barbs, he said, “You said you needed me—me, specifically, because I have ‘the Speech’, as you called it…” A hint of disgust played about his features, telling of how he found the name that Jal’tai had pinned on his abilities to be utterly ridiculous. “You said that the person in charge of this city has to have this ability—it’s necessary because the person running this city has to be able to communicate just as well with both humans and pokémon, because the job requires you to deal with both, do I understand right?”

Jal’tai blinked in surprise, and then his features relaxed into an expression that looked equally relieved and impressed. “Yes, that’s correct,” he confirmed.

But to the latios’s surprise, Solonn shook his head. “No, Jal’tai. There was another way. Telepaths, Jal’tai,” he said. “Telepaths can make anyone understand them, including humans. How can you have not even considered this? You’re probably a telepath yourself!”

Jal’tai lowered his head slightly and sighed. “That would certainly be very convenient if it were a truly viable option, but unfortunately there are reasons why it cannot be one. There is no shortage of people in this world who are mistrusting, even fearful of psychics and the abilities commonly associated with psychics, including telepathy. Their insecurities and superstitions make those of any species who would have to rely on telepathy to communicate far less than ideal candidates. Convergence and its mission will not be accepted by as many as is needed by this world if its leader is one to whom so many would not listen.”

<Even with our measures to respect their privacy in place, many species still do not trust us.> Sei Salma’s words echoed in Solonn’s memory, and a twinge of guilt for forgetting the plight of her people struck him. At the same time, however, he found that he couldn’t help but also find sympathy for those who were wary of psychics—the notion of another creature being able to reach and affect his mind was harder for him to abide by when he thought of that latios having trespassed there so recently.

After a moment of desperate scrambling, his mental faculties managed to scrape together another possible argument. “The unown-script, what about that?” he asked. “Both humans and pokémon understand it—and everyone here is made to learn it…”

Jal’tai tried to speak then, but Solonn pressed on, something fierce in his expression. The human was now all too certain that he’d found proof that Jal’tai had not had to do this to him, and that certainty stoked his fury to new heights. “Any human who knows the unown-script could have been your replacement, and there are plenty of those here because knowing unown-script is mandatory here.”

Solonn’s face was contorted almost grotesquely by anguish and outrage at this point; he looked positively deranged. “You didn’t need me,” he said. It could have been any of them! You didn’t need me!” he cried, sounding almost hysterical.

“Solonn… you must get a hold of yourself,” Jal’tai said, sounding genuinely concerned for Solonn—however, there was also the slightest hint of a warning along the edges of his voice. “Calm down, please…”

But Solonn was inconsolable. “You didn’t have to do this to me! You didn’t need me!” he practically shrieked, spit flying from his mouth, his face red with fury.

Jal’tai let out a long, slow exhalation and met Solonn’s feral stare with an expression like that of a parent who has finally lost the last shred of patience for a child’s behavior. “I said, calm down,” he said, rising into the air to look down upon the human with displeasure. There was an ominous gravity to his voice that hadn’t been there before, a far cry from the jovial tone that he had once used with Solonn.

Jal’tai raised his talons, then brought them swiftly together and pointed them at Solonn as the latios’s eyes suddenly blazed with a fuchsia light. At once, the human’s eyes went massively wide with shock, and he began gasping madly at the air as if suddenly unable to breathe.

“I cannot have you losing your mind, Solonn,” Jal’tai said gravely. “Not when you have such a demanding future ahead of you.”

Solonn could only stare back in mortal terror at Jal’tai as the latios’s telekinetic onslaught continued, preventing his lungs from filling. His vision was failing, growing dark around the edges and hazing out of focus, and he could feel a smothering oblivion beginning to consume his mind. He was certain that was about to die.

But before he could succumb to the lack of air, Jal’tai relented. Solonn immediately took a massive, involuntary gulp of air, pain exploding within his chest as his lungs refilled themselves harshly. His body immediately slackened, slumping over against the dresser, his head hanging low. After several more sharp, gasping breaths racked his aching ribs, he weakly raised his head to look up at the latios, his face a pale, sweat-drenched mask of pure, primal terror.

Jal’tai regarded the former glalie with a potent, displeased glower. “I’m very disappointed in you, my boy,” he said heavily. “I had thought you would understand the crucial importance of this project. This is about something far greater than you, Solonn. This is about the future of our world, a better future. An equal future. Without our efforts, pokémon will never get the respect and dignity in the eyes of humans that we deserve.”

He set himself back down on the floor before the traumatized human, who immediately shrank further into the corner from him. The latios sighed, the sound carrying equal measures of exasperation and seemingly earnest sorrow. “You must accept your destiny, Solonn,” he said quietly. “You must realize that you were blessed with the Speech for a higher purpose.”

He laid a talon on Solonn’s arm in an attempt to console him; Solonn immediately flinched at the contact but didn’t have the strength to resist further. “Please, Solonn. This is a most wonderful and important calling that has chosen you… you should be honored, Solonn. At the very least, you should recognize that losing your head over this is not going to make things any different for you, and it’s not going to make things as they were. You must find the serenity to accept this. Please…” he said, squeezing the human’s arm gently, “do not make me have to pacify you again. I told you that I never wanted to cause you suffering, and I meant it…”

The latios sighed sorrowfully again and rose back into the air. “Now, to answer your earlier questions regarding unown-script—as I was attempting to do then, but you wouldn’t allow me to get a word in edgewise—it is true that unown-script is mandatory for all citizens of this city to learn. However, it is not required learning in the rest of the world. As the mayor and as part of the Convergence Project, you will frequently have to deal with outsiders, both human and pokémon, with whom you will have to be able to speak on their terms. A human who possesses the Speech is the only one who can speak freely to all peoples, to whom all peoples would listen. Hence you are as you are. It is as simple as that. So you see, I do need you, Solonn.”

Jal’tai cast a glance off to his right, toward the bedroom. “In time, I hope you will be able to see things more clearly. Until such time, I’m afraid you will have to remain in this suite. I will give you the code to exit the room using the transport tile when I feel you are ready to re-enter society as a human, and I will gladly speak more with you in order to help you prepare for your future duties, but only once I can be sure that you have regained your composure enough to listen to me. For now, though, I think you could do with some quiet time alone to relax and contemplate your destiny.”

Jal’tai’s eyes once again took on the fuchsia glow that accompanied his telekinesis, and once again, he applied the psychic force to Solonn. However, he merely used his powers to gently lift Solonn from the floor this time. Panic showed plainly on the human’s face; he desperately wanted to be released from Jal’tai’s telekinetic hold, but it was just too strong. He could not put up any sort of a struggle against Jal’tai’s power.

The latios guided him through the air, bringing him into the suite’s bedroom, then set him down upon the bed. “Be at peace, my dear boy,” Jal’tai said in a warm, paternal tone. He relinquished the light in his eyes and his hold over Solonn along with it. Then a golden light blossomed around him. A second later, it faded, and Jal’tai was gone.

Solonn lay there where he’d been placed, alone now but finding no comfort in his solitude. Jal’tai was gone for now, but in making his exit through teleportation, he had revealed that he could return at any time, without any warning—knowledge that only added to the miseries that had already been inflicted upon the human.

He felt a pang of anguish as he thought upon what he had become and what he could no longer be. With his identity and element gone, he was certain that there was now no returning to the life that he had once known. Even if he could escape from this suite, this prison, this city and the one to whom it belonged… what then? As far as he could figure, he couldn’t go back to anyone that he once knew, neither Morgan nor his own kind—or what had once been his kind—back in Virc-Dho. None of them would recognize him now, and he couldn’t imagine that they would believe that he was not as he appeared, that he was the pokémon whom they had once known, just trapped in a human body now…

Solonn moaned softly as if in defeat. Trembling, he drew his arms and legs up against his chest in a fetal position, almost as if trying to collapse into himself and disappear, and broke into tears once more as he fully realized the impact of this new reality. His life as he had known it was over.

_________________________

I shall now hand out a cookie to all those who correctly identified Jal’tai as being up to something. ^^

Next time: Jal’tai wants to begin grooming his replacement as soon as possible. His replacement has other ideas… See you then!

- Sike Saner

[PDL]

the strangest thing about this chapter was that it made me think of Pinocchio:

"I'm a real boy!"

XD

seriously though, this chapter was quite a bombshell... but I sort of simpathize with Jal’tai more then with Solonn... is that supposed to be a bad thing?

and where will Solonn find some clothes?

[Xiang]

Aw man! I didn't get a chance at that cookie XD

This chapter...was...new. I bet some people didn't expect that. Like me. And that makes it a whole lot better! XD

[xXSaberXx]

omfg. SOLONNS HUMAN LAWL.

I think he is Sike's boy toy now. ROFL. She made him a human just so she could have him. D: ROFL.

I dun imagine him as a regular human. ANIME HUMAN WTF OY. rofl. Poor Morgan. She has a human for a pokemon! D: ROFL.

QUESTION THOUGH: Does Solonn stsill fit in his pokeball? D: Guess not.

Though, I never expected Jai'tail (or...erm...his name....) WAS LATIOS WTF. Does that mean he and Latias are ACTUALLY PARADING AS HUMANS?

The world may never know.

D: luff.

[Morpher01]

You, sir, have a new reviewer.

Solonn's new body is just...wrong. I hate Jai'tal, I really do.

The part about the Ursaring driving a car...*stifles laughter* *fails* HAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!!!!!! SO FUNNY!!!!!

Hee hee. I loved that. I really did. It was awesome.

Overall, keep up the good work! I absolutely LOVE this fic, along with Typhlogirl and Commander Blizzard's fics.

[Kaizer]

Well... that's certainly what I'd call a "plot-twist." Though I'm not sure if it's a twist or some sort of portal to another dimension, because... yeah.

I never saw anything like this coming- especially at the beginning.

It's a great chapter, it's just that it has caught me completely off-guard and left me for the most part speechless.

So who all got a cookie?


Oh.. and if the "Swellow" wasn't actually a dragon, I'd hate him, but dragons are awesome so I just despise him.

[Seijiro Mafuné]

I feel like a spike burst out of my neck.

Man, did I knew this or what? It's just too perfect to not be it, definitely.

I wonder how will he live from now on, though.

[Wes]

Interesting...then again your work is usally intersting but this chapter was a bit...well intersting to a new level ...sort of. Ahem anyways great chapter. It was pretty lengthy, and your description is godly. Especially with ice. Nice job and good luck with the next chapter.

[Pinecone Tortoise]

“In time, I hope you will be able to see things more clearly. Until such time, I’m afraid you will have to remain in this suite. I will give you the code to exit the room using the transport tile when I feel you are ready to re-enter society as a Human, and I will gladly speak more with you in order to help you prepare for your future duties, but only once I can be sure that you have regained your composure enough to listen to me. For now, though, I think you could do with some quiet time alone to relax and contemplate your destiny.”

Translation: Go to your room and think about what you've done. And when you're ready to apologise, your mother and I will be waiting.

Sorry, Jal'tai just sounds like such a daddy! Making Solonn the naughty boy told to go and sit in a corner. O.o

ANYWAY, I thought this was absolutely fantastic. Only you, IMO, can deal with poke>>human transformation this brilliantly. And I'm fairly sure that the reason you pulled it off so well is because of your stunning characterisation and the way you so unswervingly keep your characters actually IN character. Amazing work.

What I wanna know now is if he actually WILL meet up with his old friends. And Morgan... what happened there? It strikes me that there's still some holes in Jal'tai's version of events. For example, if Morgan let him go willingly, why was she so astonished to find him gone? Perhaps I've been a sloppy reader and missed something... but with all the plot twists so far, I'm finding it hard to believe that everything suddenly all straightened out. I mean it about those twists. It's like this fic was travelling smoothly along an X-axis and somewhere around Solonn's removal from Morgan's place, it did a funny sort of Q turn into the Y axis... but now it's gone onto a completely different plane and was last seen heading off somewhere in the Z direction.... O.o Sheesh. High school maths got to me more than I realised. And made me a nerd. How... humiliating. -_-

Where was I? Ah, yes. Jal'tai. That guy rocks!

He laid a talon consolingly on Solonn’s arm;

That was such an awesome line! ... *pictures a portly Latios dressed in a waistcoat complete with watch on a chain, wire framed glasses and a pipe clunking an awkward looking human on the back with one huge wing in what was meant to be a friendly pat.* ... yah, it's nothing like what you've got and I don't really picture Jal'tai like that, but I have an over active imagination... o.O;;;

Meh, there's very little I can say about this except that it was utter awesomeness. Your characters = cool. Very, very cool. Even though Solonn's not an Ice type anymore... oh yuck. I'm just on a roll of bad jokes. I'll leave now before I mutilate any more of your delicious story.

Piney.

[Kthleen]

So who all got a cookie?

*raises hand*

Well, I had a bad feeling about Jal’tai, that he "wasn't who he seems to be" (though I don't know how I came to feel that O_o), but schnat, I never could have imagined the turn of events here!

Wes is right about your description. I can really feel Solonn's mortification and anguish. His separation from what he is, his element, his abilities, the strength of his senses compared to ours, and all without his consent.... It's awful. Talk about violation....

The former Glalie moaned softly, as if in defeat.

I remember that my sister told me that she believed that the saddest sound a human can make is that anguished moan.

....

I don't know, I just thought I'd share that.



I do wonder how it is that Morgan's memories were altered, but at the same time, she comes home and wonders where the hell Solonn went. Was her memory altered then (basically) erased? Was there a fake Morgan? If so, was it that one's memory that was altered, if indeed Jal'tai did really alter her memory? Or was Jal'tai the fake Morgan?
...Or was it a plot hole?!

I absolutely LOVE this fic, along with Typhlogirl and Commander Blizzard's fics.

Indeed. (Although I don't think I can look at the Regis in "Hoenn's Legacy" the same way again after having watched the 8th movie...)

[Sike Saner]

PDL:

the strangest thing about this chapter was that it made me think of Pinocchio:

"I'm a real boy!"

*dies* Oh, no... Now I'm forever imprinted with that association, too. X3

but I sort of simpathize with Jal’tai more then with Solonn... is that supposed to be a bad thing?

No, not at all, I'd say. After all, Jal'tai's not really one of those "Hot damn, I'm EVIL! GRRRR!" figures. Perhaps he has got some genuinely good, noble ideas. Thing is, he seems willing to do just about anything to serve those ideas. Whether or not what he does towards his ends is right or wrong, well...

But that's just how it goes. Sometimes good people do bad things, and sometimes people serve the right ends by the wrong means.

and where will Solonn find some clothes?

Where, indeed. XD

Ratiasu: Surprises certainly can be fun. ^^ Glad you like them, too.

xXSaberXx:

QUESTION THOUGH: Does Solonn stsill fit in his pokeball? D: Guess not.

That's right. I can't speak for the way they work anywhere else, but in my stories, capture balls won't respond to humans.

Does that mean he and Latias are ACTUALLY PARADING AS HUMANS?

Well, he's been, and, quite possibly, there are others of his race who are. I guess now might be a good time to mention that my stories are among those that treat the lati as a race of many individuals. Latios and latias are not the names of two unique entities, but rather, terms for the males and the females of the species, respectively. So, Jal'tai doesn't represent the latios, but a latios.

Morpher01: *does new reviewer dance, invoking the wrath of God*

Glad you liked the scene with Ms. Olcarion. I really like it too, and it was a lot of fun to write. ^^

And I really like Typhlogirl's and ~*Commander Blizzard*~'s work, too. *thumbs up* ^^

Kaizer: Oh, yes. Dragons = boss. ^^ I've liked dragons for as long as I can remember.

Seijiro Mafun&#233;:

I wonder how will he live from now on, though.

Only time will tell... *dodges bricks*

Wes: I've noticed how curiously long the chapters are lately, too... it's kind of confounding, considering how short most of these were in the old version. This chapter, for example, was only nine pages in the old version. I'm glad you approve of the description--I personally still think it could stand to be better, but maybe it's for the better that I see it that way.

Pinecone Tortoise:

Translation: Go to your room and think about what you've done. And when you're ready to apologise, your mother and I will be waiting.

Sorry, Jal'tai just sounds like such a daddy! Making Solonn the naughty boy told to go and sit in a corner. O.o

XD That's exactly what I was going for with Jal'tai, kind of a paternal vibe.

It strikes me that there's still some holes in Jal'tai's version of events.

As it should.

For example, if Morgan let him go willingly, why was she so astonished to find him gone?

^^ That was a red flag there. What did she mean, "where is he?" Wasn't she just talking to him?...

Evidently not.

We have a Morgan who led Solonn out of the city, who told him to go and then parted company with him. Her idea. Yet, we also have a Morgan who comes home, goes to the backyard where there would normally be a glalie, and appears to be genuinely shocked that he isn't there, as if she honestly wasn't expecting him not to be there...

The situation, in a nutshell, is that one of those Morgans is not actually Morgan...

*pictures a portly Latios dressed in a waistcoat complete with watch on a chain, wire framed glasses and a pipe clunking an awkward looking human on the back with one huge wing in what was meant to be a friendly pat.*

XD You conjure the most priceless images... *hugs*

Kthleen: *does new reviewer dance; Nelson appears and goes, "Ha-ha!"*

I can really feel Solonn's mortification and anguish. His separation from what he is, his element, his abilities, the strength of his senses compared to ours, and all without his consent.... It's awful.

Thanks, I was really insistent on getting that across effectively. ^^ Hence the severe amount of revision to which this chapter was subjected.

I remember that my sister told me that she believed that the saddest sound a human can make is that anguished moan.

*nods* I agree.

I do wonder how it is that Morgan's memories were altered, but at the same time, she comes home and wonders where the hell Solonn went. Was her memory altered then (basically) erased? Was there a fake Morgan? If so, was it that one's memory that was altered, if indeed Jal'tai did really alter her memory? Or was Jal'tai the fake Morgan?
...Or was it a plot hole?!

    Spoiler:

Show Spoiler

 
The answer to three of those questions, one of which is that last one (XD), is no.
 

[Seijiro Mafuné]

Is it me or did the whole thing seem obvious after this chapter?

[Clio]

Well, I'm officially giving up on my laziness now, since I should have dropped that review before. But I guess we're still on time, right?

I've read Origin and really liked it. And Solonn was actually one of my fave characters out there (alongside with     Spoiler:

Show Spoiler

 
Dr. Kitty DeLeo XD
 

.) And then I knew that Communication was a Origin spin-off, and starring Solonn. Granted, I loved it. Especially now that the plot is really thickening...

I didn't expected either seen Solonn becoming a Human, nor a madman Latios as the mayor (btw, why all the humans in chief at Convergence are so mentally imbalanced? DeLeo wasn't alone on that matter, I can see now). And you said that maybe Karo was already there... hibernating, I guess? And I'm starting to think that Jal'tal must have something to do with a certain event on the future... I hope I'm not right.

Anyway, keep the good job.

Mo Cuishle

[Elemental Charizam]

(A) Latias is the fake Morgan, in my opinion. Jal'tai is a filthy liar :P Or he did more than he said to Morgan. Either way, he's evil *gobbles cookie*

Regardless of who is really evcil (though we all know Oth is), this was a great chappie; dare I say it, possibly the best chapter of Communication! By far the best description of poke/hukman transformation, and the way you handled the emotions of the two characters was brilliant. I still find certain moments, and the very idea of Jal'tai creating Solonn a fully functioning body extremely funny ;D

Ahem. Well, I can't wait to see in which way the twisty plot will reveal Oths blackened soul... I mean, what will happen to Solonn. Yes...

[intergalactic platypus]

You've always been an expert on the effective use of pokemon characters. Sollons transformation is a huge suprise; I never expected him to turn human. And the latios is a sympathetic character rather then a villain; a pokemon who lived in both the pokemon world and that of humans and who understands both. Excellent as always sike

[Sike Saner]

Seijiro Mafun&#233;:

Is it me or did the whole thing seem obvious after this chapter?

*shrugs* Depends on how you define “the whole thing”, perhaps.

Mo Cuishle: :3 You know what I must do. *does new reviewer dance; tomatoes come flying from audience*

Fwee, a fan of The Origin of Storms! ^^     Spoiler:

Show Spoiler

 
And fan of the kittybot, too. X3 Bossness. ^^
 

(btw, why all the humans in chief at Convergence are so mentally imbalanced? DeLeo wasn't alone on that matter, I can see now)

XD No clue, really.     Spoiler:

Show Spoiler

 
Although maybe it just sort of comes with the territory for those who would go to such lengths to be something they’re not.
 

And you said that maybe Karo was already there... hibernating, I guess?

Hmm, could be. I’m not really going to say too much regarding him right now, though. One thing I can guarantee you he’s not presently doing, though, is raiding the fridge. XP

Elemental Charizam:

I still find certain moments, and the very idea of Jal'tai creating Solonn a fully functioning body extremely funny ;D

XPPPP I know. I just couldn’t resist, though. Ain’t I a stinker? ^^

Ahem. Well, I can't wait to see in which way the twisty plot will reveal Oths blackened soul...

Awwwww…. XD *gives giant Oth plushie*

intergalactic platypus:

And the latios is a sympathetic character rather then a villain; a pokemon who lived in both the pokemon world and that of humans and who understands both.

*nods* He definitely knows from both. However… it does seem that his “understanding” might be painted with a measure of bias, no? He talks about the pok&#233;mon and human worlds about being equal, but one might wonder if that’s really the way he sees things…

[Saffire Persian]

0___0

Holy freakin' crap, Sike!? (Question mark purposeful)

You remember that brick? Well, I want to use it on myself right now, perhaps the loss of brain-cells might penetrate my denseness. I have quite a case of hindsight-bias right now.. because man, I feel like I should have guessed it, but no, I went with a ditto...

And actually, I'm very glad you didn't go with it.. 'cause all I can say, is your idea 'pwns' all, yes. I did so enjoy this chapter..mwa, Solonn becoming human! Although, I did imagine him more or less the way you described him when you were comparing him to those *cough*people*cough*. XD Still delights the heck outta me.

Of course, what can Solonn do now? Yell at Jai'tal? XD...

And now that Jai'tal has revealed himself..[spoiler] DeLeo from Origins is making me wonder how exactly he became to be how he was.. 0_o I'm wondering if he ran into someone alike to Jai'tal. [/spoiler]

XD... Just a thought, as I was wondering how exactly.. XD Ah well.

Awesome job.. and I'm so glad Morgan wasn't fake! XD She came to save him.. that makes me happy. ^^

All in all, awesome chapter Sike.. I can't give critique to save my life!

[metal_chimaera]

Somehow, impossibly…he had become Human.

So this was the big twist I guess. I have to admit, after a while (more like just-before-the-revelation-was-done actually) I started to suspect a transformation coming up, Probably because of the description And the context.

It's funny how the whole fake-Morgan plot evolves... IMO Jal'Tai has lied (again...) in his explanation...
IMO,     Spoiler:

Show Spoiler

 
the true Morgan is still the one who doesn't know anything and Jal'Tai, after knocking out the Sableye, morphs inte Morgan and takes Solonn out, says goodbye to him, morphs into a Swellow and teleports (or just flies) to the place where he meets Solonn... Smart guy that Jal'Tai...
 

Anyway, while reading this I thought about how, while logically the future should be more important than personal problems, here the personal problems (in this case Solonns transformation) seem by far more important than the future of Convergence.... Meh, a bit too deep I guess.

Oh well, keep up the good work, and merry christmas and happy new year.

Oh and BTW, I figured Human Solonn would have very pale blue ayes and grey-whit'ish hair, as you see so often in Mangas... Otherwise black hair fits nicely, but still with the plae blue eyes...

Take Care